Wednesday, October 11, 2006

This is an annual food festival held at the, now trendy, town of Kaikoura on the South Island's east coast. From small beginnings it's turned into a major event. When I first went (more years ago than I care to remember) there were only about 1200 people there and only a bare handful of stalls. Now they have to restrict tickets to 6000 and there's around 50 different outlets selling a wide variety of food an alcohol.

All in all it's a good day out. Though you have to choose the year you go pretty carefully. For a while every second Seafest was a wet one, creating the tag mudfest for the exceptionally slushy years. Fortunately this year was in the dry cycle.

Word of advice to those who intend to go next year. Any beverage called Liquid Fire, which involves vodka and tequila laced with chilli, will be like drinking a bonfire. The problem is it's just as hot (if not hotter) on the way out as many blokes at the urinal's discovered. To see a bloke going crosseyed, wincing in pain, muttering "cor, bloody hell" while having a pee is a sight to behold.

Oh and a word of advice for the organisers .... more toilets next year please! Somewhere up in the distance in the photo above you will see a glimpse of an orange portaloo. Suffice it to say many of the female patrons were not best impressed at the wait. (Lots of crossed legs and expressions of extreme concentration)